Thoughts in a VA Ward
by TakeMeOrLeaveMe2010
Summary: Insight into Max's endless days in a hospital bed. Max-Centric. -oneshot- Please Read and Review!


Drip

**If you haven't noticed, I'm in a creative state, so fics/chapters might come shooting out of me for the next couple weeks.**

**I promise they have all been heavily edited and what not, not just coming out of my ass XD.**

**A little insight into Max's endless days in the VA Ward.**

**Disclaimer: I own none of it!**

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_Drip. Drip. Drip._ That metronomic noise is starting to sound an awful lot like a clock. What it's for, Max isn't sure. The number of days until he gets out of here? The number of days until he dies? His incoherent mess of a mind decides it's counting down the hours until he gets another shot of morphine.

Which is really the only way he can pass the time these days. Nothing else seems even or steady enough to use as a timer. There always the sporadic death of a soldier next to him or the times when a nurse will refill his IV bag, but he has found those can't be dependable. Of course, he's found out a lot of things aren't dependable. Like his gun. Or his helmet. If those things had decided to actually protect him like they were supposed to, he wouldn't be here in the first place.

But at least there's morphine and estrogen-crazed, boyfriend-less nurses. He can certainly get by on those two wonderful things. First of all, the drugs. They may not come as nearly often as they should, but when they do, dear Lord, it feels nice to sleep. Though his eyes may remain shut for good parts of the day, he normally doesn't sleep. How could he when he dreams of the Caucasian, very blonde nurse, who was talking to him not three minutes ago, screaming viciously as her hair melts to midnight black, her eyes narrow, and blood begins to drip down from the corners of her mouth, blemishing her lightly tanned skin as the various flora and fauna behind her erupts into flames? This vision normally comes in many forms, sometimes, to his horror, in the form of Lucy.

That's when he really loses it. He can't bear to look at her when she visits not long after a nightmare like that. This causes her to fret, much to his dismay, but he can't tell her any words of reassurance. He knows the moment he looks at her, those tears falling down her face will turn scarlet and he'll lose any progress he's made.

Thank God the nurses are there to keep his mind off of things on his good days. Most them are friendly and will talk you as long as you please, but there are the occasional few who hunt for soldiers in desperate need of a quickie. When giving the soldiers their dosage of morphine, they would often lean forward more than they needed to, flashing a good view down their dresses and perhaps even stealing a sultry kiss. Max found he simply could not resist.

However, most of the time it was…strange, to put it nicely. He blamed it on the fact that his mind wasn't all there, but it was still ungodly unusual. Rarely, in his days before the Army snatched him up, had he ever felt awkward with a woman. Even if she was all nerves and mindless babble, he found he could pretend to be patient and by the time they got into it, she would be screaming his name.

The tables had definitely turned. It would start out fine. Whomever the horny nurse was would coyly slip her panties off and toss them underneath his bed. She would climb up onto the bed, purposely letting her short dress ride up and allow Max to see what he was in store for. He would grin stupidly, giggling in a way that probably turned her off. She never seemed to mind; she was most likely used to it.

But as soon as they began kissing, it was all foreign nature to him from then on. His tongue would gracelessly swirl around her mouth, his hands mindlessly roaming about her body. None of it was particularly sensual or intimate; it felt open, clumsy, and immature, as if he was a gawky teenager doing it for the first time.

Every time they finished he would apologize and mutter various expletives under his breath, and every time, no matter who it was, she would grin and tell him not to worry about it. He felt bad, knowing two years earlier girls had practically fallen at his feet after twisting them around his finger. He hadn't quite lost his arrogant charm, which must have been what attracted the nurses to his bedside, but he had certainly lost his masterful technique.

He had also lost his best friend, whom he guessed was wandering aimlessly down the streets of Liverpool three thousand miles away. Why and how he left, he wasn't sure; tears welled in Lucy's eyes whenever he inquired her about it, and she had had enough things to cry over lately. It didn't really matter, anyway; he missed him. Jude, in his mind, was the only person who could make him feel like Max again. Jude was his morphine that took away the horrible memories for good.

He often pretends that his other friends are Jude. He has the feeling they starting to think he's delirious; he slipped once by asking JoJo where his ridiculous accent disappeared to, but sometimes he can envision Pru's long, dark hair cropped short by her ears, curling just a little and color softening to chocolate brown. Sometimes he can picture Sadie voluptuous curves folding into her body, making her tall and flat. And occasionally, he can imagine his sister's soft, comforting voice losing its Eastern clip and dropping a few octaves.

Oh, he knows it's all in his head. But it is nice to pretend your best friend is there, grinning at you deviously. Jude wouldn't cry like Pru and Luce had; he would probably give him a light punch on the arm, causing Max to glower at him and grumble profanities under his breath, even though he's secretly happy the mutual feeling between them hasn't changed.

"Thought I told you to come home in one bloody piece," he would state wryly while hiding a grin.

"I am in one piece, you idiot," Max would reply. "Except the fact my mind may be elsewhere at the moment…"

Jude would pretend he didn't hear the latter part of that statement, and the two would banter for the rest of the visit. He was sure Lucy would say Jude was insensitive, not caring about the horrors Max had seen and what he had gone through by keeping them off that subject. But to Max, it was exactly what he needed. He loved his sister and Pru and the rest of their friends, and he appreciated them trying so hard to understand. But they just didn't, and Jude would know that he didn't understand. So, he would do everything to bring him out of his war reveries, letting him come back to the present.

And dear Lord, did he need that right now. Unfortunately, no matter how well he could imagine it, it wasn't the same of having Jude _here_. For real.

So, Max sighs, rolls over on his side, and waits for the next 909 drips to go by before he gets his next dose.

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**So yeah, I hope you liked it. 'Cause I worked REALLY hard on this one. :D.**

**Please review, if you don't mind.**


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